LITMIR.BIZ

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lucky, if you looked at it from her point of view when she didn’t even have even one father and he had two. Even privately complained about it. Novel idea when he’d been a cranky little victim despite telling himself to get over it.

      He brought himself back to the present. ‘After my dad’s first heart attack, that would be the man I thought was my real dad, I heard my mother question whether I should be told about Angus. Not a great way to find out. Nineteen and I hadn’t been given the choice to know my real dad for the whole of my childhood. And to be still treated like a child.’ He hadn’t taken it well and had half blamed Angus as well for not knowing of his existence.

      ‘So how’d you find him? Angus?’ Tara had looked past that to the interesting bit. Maybe he should have done that too a long time ago. She made him feel petty and he didn’t like it.

      ‘It was more than ten years ago, but at the time it all seemed to move too slowly. Took six months. He was on some discreet medical assignment overseas and the government wouldn’t let me contact him. Then he came to see me and brought me here to meet my grandfather. It must have been a family trait because he hadn’t seen his own dad for twenty years.’

      ‘Louisa’s husband?’

      ‘Yep. Apparently Angus and Grandfather Ned fought over my dad’s relationship with my mother, and when they ran away together and it didn’t work out, he never came back here.’

      She didn’t offer sympathy. Just an observation as she glanced around. ‘It’s a very healing place.’

      ‘Well, Angus brought me here to get to know him. And this was where he met Mia.’

      He wondered if that was why he hadn’t been able to commit to a relationship in the past. To fully trust people because even his own parents had betrayed him. He shook his head. Didn’t know where all that angst had come from, it certainly wasn’t something he’d talked about before, and if he’d stirred this kind of feeling in Tara by asking about her past, he could see why she didn’t want to talk about it. When he thought about her life he felt incredibly selfish and self-indulgent complaining about his own.

      She’d said Lyrebird Lake was a healing place. Maybe it was. Did that mean his coming here with Maeve meant it was his turn to move on? He mused, ‘I don’t know if it’s the place or the people, but whenever I visit it seems when I leave here I’m usually less stressed.’

      She laughed and he enjoyed the sound. ‘Even if you lose some of your holidays to fill in for your dad and unexpected breech deliveries.’

      ‘They’re the good bits.’ And he realised it was true. He smiled at her. ‘The really good bits.’

      ‘Like today.’ She smiled back and the way it changed her face made him think of a previous conversation. Tara’s glorious moment. She certainly looked the part.

      He caught her fingers. ‘Today has had some very magical moments.’

      He smoothed the towel out of her grip and let it fall and gathered up her other hand. He half expected her to pull away but she seemed bemused more than annoyed. He tugged her closer until their hips met. Liking the feel of a wet Lycra mermaid against his chest, unconsciously he leaned in and her curves fitted his like they were designed for each other. He looked down at her long, thin fingers in his bigger hands, stroked her palm and felt a shiver go through her.

      ‘What are you doing?’ she whispered.

      He had to smile. ‘Enjoying another magical moment.’

      Looked down into her face and then there was no way he could stop himself bending his head and brushing her lips with his. Watched her eyelids flutter closed and the idea that this prickly, independent woman trusted him enough to close her eyes and allow him closer filled him with delight.

      Lips like strawberry velvet. A shiver of electricity he couldn’t deny. ‘Mmm. You taste nice.’

      Her turn to smile as she opened her eyes and ducked her head to hide her face but he couldn’t have that. Wouldn’t have that as he slid one finger under chin, savoured the confusion in her eyes and face and then leant in for a proper kiss. She was like falling into a dream, soft in all the right places, especially her lips.

      As she began to kiss him back there wasn’t much thinking in his mind after that but a whole lot of feeling was going on. Until abruptly she ended it.

      Tara felt as if she was floating and then suddenly realised she was kissing the man everyone loved. Who did she think she was? She pulled away and turned her back on him. Picked up the towel she’d dropped. Didn’t know what had happened—one minute they’d been flirting and teasing, probably to get away from the previous conversations, and then he’d confused the heck out of her with the way he’d looked at her—and that kiss!

      She could still feel the crush against his solid expanse of damp chest and was surprisingly still dazed by a kiss that had gone from gorgeously warm and yummy to scorching hot in a nanosecond.

      And she’d thought he was a little stand-offish! This wasn’t going anywhere, except a one-night stand, maybe if she was lucky a one-month stand. Well, she’d been as bad as him. She sighed and turned back to him with a smile that she’d practised over the years that shielded her from the world.

      ‘Guess we’d better get back.’

      He narrowed his eyes and there was a pause when she thought he was going to get all deep and personal or apologise, but he didn’t. Thank goodness.

      She just wanted to finish drying off and walk back to the manse. Maintain the reality that she was playing with a toy that didn’t belong to her and if she kept touching it she’d be in deep trouble.

      Simon really wanted to hold her hand, it would have been … nice? But Tara had tucked her fingers up under her elbows in a keep-off gesture that he couldn’t help reading. Maybe he had come on a bit strong but, lordy, when he’d kissed her the second time the heat between them had nearly singed his eyebrows off. The thought made him smile. And grimace because it obviously hadn’t affected her the way it had affected him. Did she realise the power those lips of hers held?

      When they arrived back at the manse the kitchen was in chaos. Simon figured out that Louisa had cajoled Maeve into helping her assemble the Christmas tree and mounds of tinsel and baubles lay scattered across the kitchen table and cheesy Christmas tunes were playing in the background.

      The manse had a big old lounge room but he knew every year Louisa put the Christmas tree up in the kitchen because that was the place everyone seemed to gravitate to—and this year was no different.

      Simon loved the informality of it, unlike his mother’s colour-co-ordinated precision, and he enjoyed the bemused expression, mixed with a little embarrassment left over from their kiss, on Tara’s face as she looked round at him.

      ‘Excellent timing, Simon,’ Louisa said, as she handed him an armful of tiny star-shaped bulbs on a wire and a huge black plastic bag. She gestured vaguely to the screen door and he inclined his head to Tara and opened the door for her. The long post and rail veranda looked over the street and then the lake.

      ‘Outside is where it really happens.’ Good to have something to fill the silence between them. Awkward-R-Us. He waved the roll of bulbs at Tara and set about repairing the damage he’d done by kissing her.

      ‘This is the start of the outside contingent. My job is to help Dad put these up when I’m home.’ He pulled a little stepladder along behind him until he reached the end of the veranda and climbed up. Started to hang the tiny lights as far as he could reach before he climbed down again.

      Tara was still looking bewildered and maybe still a little preoccupied from their kiss at the lake. He was sorry she was feeling uncomfortable, but he knew for a fact he wasn’t sorry he’d kissed her. He wanted to do it again. Instead he carried on the conversation because she sure wasn’t helping. ‘These go along the top wooden rail. You can see them from down the street. Looks very festive.’

      ‘I imagine it does.’ She closed

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